Huddled Masses
by shadowfire
Summary: AU- Orochimaru is an evil dictator, ruling over Kohona killing all who defy him. This is the battle to get back their freedom.


He hung off the jungle-gum, body dangling and swaying in the wind. A thin ripped rope was wrapped around his old dark-patched neck and the man grappled to get a better hold on the bars. If he let go, his neck would be snapped by the force of all 160 pounds being suspended on the bar. If he let go, he would die. And if he died...the purpose of this impromptu gathering had been achieved. It was a public execution; his execution. He had dared to defy the lord of their country, Orochimaru-sama; he had attempted to overthrow the evil dictator.

His eyes scanned the crowd. Hundreds of people were out today to watch the coming slaughter. If he didn't die within an hour, a torture session would be held to get the crowd rallied up. The crowd would go into frenzies and then help kill him. It was a good way to see how loyal people were to their leader and also served as a way to show what would happen to those who resisted the snake-lord's rule.

There were two sorts of people who came to these events. There were the younger adults and kids who had spent most of their lifetime under Orochimaru's rule. They never knew of the life before this and were never allowed a chance to decide which life was better for them. They were the ones who taunted him, staring at him with eyes full of bloodlust.

The other type were the people who were over 23 who had spent the majority of their lives free, living in the hidden village of the leaf, not as the Sound Valley like it was today. They remembered how good things had been before that. But they were powerless to stop such a mad ruler and thus sucked it up, pretending to go along. They did what they were told like sheep to the slaughter; all in hopes that they would survive another day. They were so scared of death that they ended up living the lives they wanted in their minds.

He had been one of those people once; he had been afraid to get on Orochimaru's bad side and end up being killed. But he was old and soon would die. He was once the most powerful man in the village. He had once been their Hokage. It was shortly after he retired, did Orochimaru conquer the village. Anyone who stood against him and the will of his secret police, the Akatsuki, was killed. To prevent the destruction, the village surrendered and he took charge.

He never expected it to get this bad. No one would take a stand and there were enough powerful people in the village to overrun the government. But Orochimaru wasn't only skilled in war and strategy but also in imitation. Everyone lived in constant fear of him. This was why he decided to rebel. No one should ever live their life in a mental prison; their bodies being free to move about but not their wills and desires.

He had almost succeeded. But he hadn't realized the qualms of his existence; he was being constantly watched and he was caught immediately before he could get to the first meeting of the people. They had tortured him for hours with illusions of his family dying and rats scrambling across his face, trying to gorge his eyes out. He hadn't broken under it and all of the members were safe. No one else had been caught and again the rebels had fell back into their dark abyss of going along with Orochimaru.

He could see several of his comrades out there – the people who would have fought with him. They were staring ahead with small twisted smiles on their face, but their evil smiles didn't quite reach their eyes.

Their eyes were blank, no emotion expressed. Sarutobi knew they wanted to cry and express the horrendous nature of this, but it was better to hide every emotion. No one knew how much the Akatsuki watched.

They watched everyone, every moment. They would creep around the village, popping into people's houses undetected, and would ransack the house for any clues of disloyalty. They would disguise themselves and walk among the common people to see if there was friendship or love within the ranks. The people of Kohona were not supposed to befriend others, they were to be friendly to each other but never go out of the way to be nice. Orochimaru believed the act of being friends made people loyal to one another and not to him.

Love was a crime. Love wasn't to exist between two grown adults. Adults were only allowed to mate on a yearly basis to make sure of an offspring to guarantee a constant dynamic equilibrium of people living and people dying. The kids were taken from their parents and then brain-washed by Orochimaru to make them subordinates. The ones who showed any promise of being a ninja ( which was outlawed now; it wouldn't work well to have people trained in the art of fighting if one wanted to keep control) were taken directly to Orochimaru's home and were trained by him to be his bodyguard and someday, maybe a part of the Akatsuki.

Kids grew up never knowing their parents intimately. They would spend a week there once a month. Instead of socializing with the people who bore them, they spent their time spying on their parents, reporting them to Orochimaru. If the parents had committed crimes that couldn't be repented, they would disappear into the night, never to be seen again.

Sarutobi was one of the lucky ones. He was an important figure so he would be used as an example. In this way, at least his family and friends could say their good-byes to him silently in their mind.

After today, he would never be discussed again. He would fail to have existed. All records or mentions him would be burned. This is what happened to every person who vanished due to Orochimaru, they never were alive. Anything that was wrongly stated by Orochimaru was changed along with the entire history of the land. The engravings of the Hokages on the stone wall had been changed from being a place of worship and pondering to a site of execution. The stone Hokages were stained with blood, covering their faces so they were no longer recognizable or remembered.

No one would look at him. His followers didn't want to betray their intentions and emotions, the people who hated him were jeering, singing, and dancing at the coming death of the last great hero. They saw it as that with his death; all the people from the old days will have disappeared. Greatness could now inhabit Kohona.

That brought a smile to his lips. They didn't get it. Fighting for the right thing was ingrained in every member of the village. With the right spark, hell could break loose and they could take back their world. Hope never truly died.

A trumpet roared out its obnoxious tune. It announced the five minutes before the torture session would begin. He was grateful; his arms were beginning to hurt. He wanted to die in his full glory, fighting till the end. Last words had been prepared and he wanted to tell them to the world. It would be his last stand...

His eyes scanned over the crowd. He wanted to find the people in which the possibility of revolt lay within them. There were Orochimaru's bodyguards who met his eyes immediately, some glaring...others looked at him impassively. They were not where his hope lay, but they would be the turning point if the revolution came to be. They were trained and the best in the land with fighting.

He turned to stare at the children who were rounded up in one corner. The majority of them held daggers in their eyes for him, but he wondered how much was show and conditioning then actual malice. The girls had softer humane looks to them while the boys who were dressed in traditional ninja-garb looked ready to draw blood. Hope lay with these kids...and that frightened him. There was almost no chance of them to break free from the cycle but yet he believed. He believed that his death would not be in vain. Someone would watch this and the seeds of doubt would be planted.

A high C from a trumpet erupted, and the crowd grew silent as Orochimaru walked up to the monkey bars, flanked by Kabuto, his right-hand man who was his personal bodyguard. This gave Sarutobi amusement since Kabuto only showed up when there was a chance of death on Orochimaru's part. They still thought of him as a threat; it made his day

"Greetings, Comrade!" Orochimaru yelled to the loud baying of the crowd, waiting for their cheering to die down. "In the 12th year of our reign, we have suffered many losses. Your children have died, your families been slaughtered, lives vanished...all because of this man..." he pointed one of his pointy slim fingers in Sarutobi's face and the crowd booed.

"He watched your families die as he sat in a seat of luxury. While your families starved, he was eating your rations of chocolate. He dared to accuse the government of taking away your families when all along it was he. He didn't want our new nation to prosper. He wanted to see it like it was in the old days, a weak and powerless nation. He wanted to weaken us to allow the Nation of the Sand to penetrate our defenses. This man is not a citizen of the Valley of the Sound but a traitor. For his crimes...I commit him to death!"

The crowd cheered again, taking on animalistic urgency as the corrupted believers of Orochimaru's words surged forward, already leveling their weapons onto him.

"Do you have any last words?"

It hurt to move his neck, but he needed to look at the people. Kabuto positioned the mike they had brought up to his lips.

"My name is Sarutobi. I was the 3rd Hokage. Nothing this man says is true...he wipes out the past and the people who remember it, your family members..."

Kabuto kicked him, shutting him up and the mike dropped to the ground with a horrible ear-piercing squeal. He was about to do it again and Sarutobi closed his eyes in anticipation for the pain, but it never came. He could hear Orochimaru whispering in the background, "No one will believe him. Let him talk."

Sarutobi continued with his speech before his time ran out.

"...Were taken by him because they defied him, they thought about things that he didn't want to think about. Anything that isn't about him is wrong to think about. Do you think we have a lack of food because we are fighting? He takes all the food that is for our troops and eats it because there are no troops. We are not at war with Sand, and never have been. He says this because Sand is trying to free..."

He screamed as the fire jutsu hit him, rendering him incapable of speaking. Orochimaru realized his mistake...and shut him up before it was too late. But it was too late...the seeds of doubt were planted. It may take an hour or maybe years before they bloomed but...he had achieved his goal.

"Konohamaru ...please come up now!" Orochimaru slithered, and Sarutobi watched in horror as his youngest grandson trudged up the stairs, his blue blanket cape dragging on the ground. His eyes were downcast, face reddened and gleaming from all the tears he had shed.

"Look up!" Kabuto barked and Konohamaru looked up reluctantly to see his grandfather dangling off the toy he had once so loved, topless...covered in bloody scratches down his chest.

"For all of the Valley of Sound to hear, renounce your grandfather as a traitor."

Sarutobi watched in horror as Konohamaru just stood there, eyes blazing at the two adults.

"No!" he simply stated.

"He is a traitor who tried to destroy our home. Tell him you are no longer related to him!" Kabuto's voice was reasonably controlled.

"My grandfather would never hurt anyone in this village!" he wailed.

"He tried to kill Orochimaru-san."

"That's a lie!"

Sarutobi noted the murderous glares forming in the two men's eyes, and carefully moved his foot to lightly tap his grandson's head to get him to look up.

"Denounce me. I won't be offended. Live..." he whispered quietly.

Konohamaru shook his head.

"They'll kill you."

"I won't!" Tears were streaming down his face as he shouted.

"Not denouncing a traitor holds a punishment of death. Do you want to die, Konohamaru-chan?"

"No!"

"Then do it!"

The crowd began to chant, and Konohamaru looked at it with disgust, lip curling into a snarl. They all loved this man once. He may not been around when they did, but he had heard the stories.

He hung his head in shame, letting the tears splatter on the dirty grass. "I...I..." he sniveled. He didn't want to die. His grandfather didn't want him to die. "I..."

"Don't do it!" yelled an obnoxiously loud voice from the crowd. All the stomping and roaring from the crowd stopped instantly as they looked around, wondering who it was who was revealing themselves as a traitor.

Sarutobi watched with delight as Orochimaru stiffened, face turning paler by the second, having not expected someone to be brazen enough to admit this. His eyes circled the crowd to find everyone in place...to find nothing out of the ordinary.

"Who said that?" Kabuto roared, pulling out his kunai for defense.

"I did!" yelled a voice and it echoed everywhere, seeming to bounce around in people's minds. It was everywhere and the Akatsuki looked around frantically for the offender.

It was then that the rain began to fall, laced with Shurikens, and people immediately scattered to get out of the way. Sarutobi watched carefully, not being able to get away if one did come close to him anyway. As they fell and hit their target, they would disappear, causing no damage but a lot of smoke.

A flash of orange and yellow streaked past his face, landing by the side of his sobbing grandson who was frightened out of his mind with the possibility of dying. The creature picked the boy up, cradling him to his body, and turned to look at Sarutobi.

Bright blue eyes, wild blonde hair, whiskers...it was the Kyuubi child. Sarutobi had never thought he would see the kid ever again since that fateful day when the fox was sealed into his body. He didn't know what side the creature stood on; if the fox was around, it would be Orochimaru's since it was him who had sent the fox on the village in an effort to destroy it, or if the kid was in control of the body, he was on the rebellion side. He was sure though that Orochimaru had no idea that the Kyuubi was still alive. Otherwise the kid would have been down there with the ninjas, being trained for Orochimaru's purposes.

The child was gone before he knew it, and the smoke was beginning to clear up. He didn't want to die slowly. His body was aching and he was old. He had did everything he had wanted to do in his life and did everything he had needed to do before he died.

"I love you..." was what he whispered before he let go of the monkey bar, the rope breaking his fall...and snapping his neck.


End file.
